As it turns out–there are certain sensitivities when it comes to romance–and because this is not exactly my wheel house–if you know what I’m saying, I’m showing some love to concepts that (ahem!) didn’t get any love…

I feel the need to clarify one thing about the type of Universe I’m talking about. According to Oprah, the Universe can give you everything you want out of life. You just need to “will it” to yourself. How do you do it? If you put the message out there, plant the seed, dream it, live it, write it down, put it in your journal–anything your heart desires can be yours. Oprah calls it The Secret. Orphan children in third world countries call it–bullsh*t, and so do I. You know who else calls bullsh*t? Anne Frank.

Okay, so you know in the movies, when the skinny, pale, awkward nerd gets a makeover and somehow they manage to find like a really hot date, and then they make that really breathtakingly unforgettable slow motion entrance to the party and people can’t stop gawking because they’re just so luminous? Well, turns out I have nothing in common with films of that nature…

My best Christmas was in 1992 when Santa brought me something I didn’t even know I wanted until I opened it–a Super Nintendo! My reaction was not dissimilar to that of a thirteen-year-old girl in the front row of the Ed Sullivan show during that epic Beatles performance. Or if you’re under twenty, that girl who cried when Sanjaya performed on American Idol [READ MORE]

The year was 1994, and my parents had just announced that they would be getting a divorce–something I had seen coming for years, and yet it still seemed to take me by surprise. At the time, I remember being less sad about the idea of our family breaking up and more…excited — excited that I would now have two of everything—or so I thought. You can imagine the look on my face when we packed our bags and moved into my grandmother’s 600 square foot, one bedroom apartment building. This was not at all what the movies had led me to believe divorce was like. I learned quickly that my parents’ divorce was probably not going to benefit me at all — in fact, it looked like I might actually stand to lose something.

For all you underage University freshmen out there, I give you this piece of practical and incredibly invaluable advice: If you’re going to use a fake ID for the first time in your life, I suggest you do it at a time when you aren’t dressed like like The Boy Who Lived [READ MORE...]

Superheroes were all the rage when I was in elementary school. If you didn’t have a kick-ass superhero costume on Halloween, you knew better than to show your face at the annual St. Charles Elementary Halloween Day Parade. I struggled for a long time when deciding which superhero I would be. My mother campaigned hard for Spider Man—“He doesn’t have many friends either”–pep talks were not her forte. But Peter Parker just didn’t feel like the right fit. I was looking for something more…musical [READ MORE]